Ozaukee County approves $1.76 million bid for bike bridge

By Dan Benson, Journal Sentinel, Inc

Published on: 12/18/2008

Port Washington - Christmas came a few days early for supporters of a bicycle bridge over I-43 in the Town of Grafton when the Ozaukee County Public Works Committee on Thursday approved a $1.76 million bid to build it.

The bid by Zenith Tech Inc. of Waukesha, made through a state Department of Transportation bidding process, is significantly lower than the nearly $2.12 million estimated cost of the project, which will be part of the Ozaukee Interurban Trail system, which stretches more than 30 miles.

With Thursday's approval, construction on the project is expected to begin in February and be completed by September, said county planner Andrew Struck, who also is chairman of the Ozaukee Interurban Trail Advisory Council.

Eighty percent of the project is being paid for through state and federal grants. The rest is being paid for with private donations raised by the advisory council.

The council has raised about $200,000 so far toward the bridge. Another $35,000 still needs to be raised, Struck said.

The bridge is part of a project that would replace about two miles of on-road trail on Highway W in the Town of Grafton with 1.3 miles of off-road trail.

The bridge was first proposed in December 2003 when the county received almost $1 million in federal grant money for the project. But the process became mired in a bureaucratic swamp after an original estimate of $1.3 million was greeted with a single bid of more than twice that much - $2.8 million.

Officials went back to the drawing board and came up with a simpler steel truss bridge they thought could be built for about $2.1 million.